Lockless binary log information

This feature is exclusive to Percona Server for MySQL starting with version 5.6.26-74.0. It is also used in Percona XtraDB Cluster when the node is being backed up without xtrabackup --galera-info.

When the Lockless binary log information feature is available on the server, Percona XtraBackup can trust binary log information stored in the InnoDB system header and avoid executing LOCK BINLOG FOR BACKUP (and thus, blocking commits for the duration of finalizing the REDO log copy) under a number of circumstances:

• when the server is not a GTID-enabled Galera cluster node

• when the replication I/O thread information should not be stored as a part of the backup (i.e. when the xtrabackup --slave-info option is not specified)

If all of the above conditions hold, Percona XtraBackup does not execute the SHOW MASTER STATUS as a part of the backup procedure, does not create the xtrabackup_binlog_info file on backup. Instead, that information is retrieved and the file is created after preparing the backup, along with creating xtrabackup_binlog_pos_innodb, which in this case contains exactly the same information as in xtrabackup_binlog_info and is thus redundant.

To make this new functionality configurable, there is now a new Percona XtraBackup option, xtrabackup --binlog-info, which can accept the following values:

• OFF - This means that Percona XtraBackup will not attempt to retrieve the binary log information at all, neither during the backup creation, nor after preparing it. This can help when a user just wants to copy data without any meta information like binary log or replication coordinates. In this case, xtrabackup --binlog-info=OFF can be passed to Percona XtraBackup and LOCK BINLOG FOR BACKUP will not be executed, even if the backup-safe binlog info feature is not provided by the server (but the backup locks feature is still a requirement).

• ON - This matches the old behavior, i.e. the one before this Percona XtraBackup feature had been implemented. When specified, Percona XtraBackup retrieves the binary log information and uses LOCK BINLOG FOR BACKUP (if available) to ensure its consistency.

• LOCKLESS - This corresponds to the functionality explained above: Percona XtraBackup will not retrieve binary log information during the backup process, will not execute LOCK BINLOG FOR BACKUP, and the xtrabackup_binlog_info file will not be created. The file will be created after preparing the backup using the information stored in the InnoDB system header. If the required server-side functionality is not provided by the server, specifying this xtrabackup --binlog-info value will result in an error. If one of the above mentioned conditions does not hold, LOCK BINLOG FOR BACKUP will still be executed to ensure consistency of other meta data.

• AUTO - This is the default value. When used, Percona XtraBackup will automatically switch to either ON or LOCKLESS, depending on the server-side feature availability, i.e., whether the have_backup_safe_binlog_info server variable is available.

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